Ncuti Gatwa was recently named the Fourteenth Doctor of the long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who, which came as a complete surprise to Simu Liu and the rest of his Barbie co-stars.
Over the past couple of months, Gatwa had been filming Barbie with Liu, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, et al., and, until the big announcement, kept his monumental new gig a secret. Liu, who plays one of the Kens alongside Gatwa and Gosling, described the shock he felt at his co-star’s revelation during a London stop on his book tour:
“[He] didn’t tell anyone a thing. And then all of a sudden over the weekend he was announced. We came to work on Monday we were like ‘Dude, how long have you been holding this in for?’ And he’s like, ‘Two months.’ I would have combusted. He had to get security in and around not only his place of residence, but the places of residence of his entire family.”
This prompted Liu to admit his failure at keeping his Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings casting a secret:
“I’m not a great secrets guy, when it comes to this stuff. [Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige] was like, ‘We’re gonna fly you to Comic Con in San Diego in four days, just keep your mouth shut until then. We want to be able to surprise the whole world when we announce you at Comic Con, like, don’t ruin the moment.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, sure.’ He was like, ‘No seriously, don’t tell your parents, don’t tell your friends. Don’t tell anyone.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.'”
Liu instantly told his best friend. Departing from Gatwa’s principle, he called his Shang-Chi casting “too big of news to keep with you.”
You can check out Gatwa in the upcoming series of Doctor Who. But before it airs, you can see him and his blabbermouth friend, Liu, in Barbie, which is expected to be released on July 21, 2023.
